Learning the guitar - Easy 3 or 4 chord song suggestions?
 

Hey, I'm learning to play the guitar (again), and the nicest thing is being able to play REAL songs, so i'd like to know suggestions for easy-to-play songs involving up to 4 chords - so far i can positively play 'the magic four', A, G, D & E (major).

My list so far (3 chords):

Roxette - The look ( :eek: :smiley36: )
Bryan Adams - Summer of 69 (excl. the bridge)

there has GOT to be better songs than that to rehearse! :smiley23:

Willy Mason - So long, has 4 chords in it, and is still a fantastically amazing song

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/...o_long_crd.htm

Devendra Banhart - At the Hop (4 chords)

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/tabs/...he_hop_crd.htm
You don't have to play the picking, it sounds fine strummed

Tanita Tikaram - Twist in my sobriety has 3 chords in it,

Verse: Am Dm Emaj Am,
Am Dm Emaj Am,
Emaj Am,


chorus: Emaj, Am,
Emaj, Am,
Dm, Am
Emaj Am,
Emaj Am,

You might have to put a capo somewhere for that ^.

They're all brilliant songs, which is always good.

whoa, minor chords!!! i'm gonna have to save those tabs for later, but thanks! :)

don't be a scaredy face, give em a go! Am is just like Emaj, moved down a string - easy. Dm is just the same as Dmaj but the last string is held down on the first fret instead of the seccond. And Em is just Emajor with the 4th string open instead of held down at the 1st fret.

cille! you're soooo doing it the wrong way round. It's soo boring learning chords and then having to search for songs which use them. PenguinBoy reccomends you just find simple songs, and then learn the chords in order to try and play the songs.

Music before theory say I.

First song I ever learned was Leaving on a jet plane:
|A D A D|
|A D E |

repeat! easy as pie!

Though not all that exciting.
And I agree with penguin boy. Find easy song with maybe one or 2 extra new chords and learn that way.

Oh, and "Smelly Cat" is
|E A |
|D A E |

Alot of Damien RIces songs are 3-4 chords!! Delicate, I Remember ( I Think), Volcano! A few jeff buckley songs are too!

see, i've tried your approach at least a couple of timesd and it's sooooo the wrong approach for me! i tend to get too frustrated about everything that i CAN'T do, it's better for me to keep it simple and take 1 baby step at the time. so for the time being, i'm sticking with good old A E D and G and concentrate on being able to shift chords on time (gosh! that G chord sure takes some time to put together every time; YES! you may call me 'slowhand' :smiley14: :D ).

yessssssss'ah! that's the kind of stuff i'm looking for. it's of course not the most brilliant song in the world, but it is lovely to find new ways of combining my few chords and excersising (sp?) my fingers in this new way.

:smiley20: :smiley32: yay! FINALLY a song i can play at this level and sound EXACTLY like (or even better than) the original artist! :D

Breakfast At Tiffany's
Verses: |D G A|
Chorus |D A G|

Knockin' on heaven's door:
|G D Am|

Don't be scared of the AM. As Penguinboy says, it's the same shape as E just move all the fingers down one string.

(These are also the chords for Gabrielle's "Rise" but you didn't hear that from me!!)

*lol* my boyfr.. *ehem* GUITAR TEACHER said i could play that one as well :smiley4:

nice ones kat!

my suggestion is maybe a surprise for you: neil young
heart of gold is really easy to play.

Older Chests

Aminor - Dminor- G - C - C/b

Delicate

Capo 5th

F - C - F - C - G

F - C - F - C- F - C - F - G

Listen Girl - Mic Christopher

C - Aminor - F

Fitzcarraldo - The Frames

F#minor - D

A - Bminor - C#minor - D

Josh Ritter - Wolves

D - Em - G

brilliant brilliant brilliant thanks a bundle! :smiley20:
i just figured A minor out by myself, so now i can play your ghost
:smiley4:

what? that definately doesn't sound right to me.

Sorry, yah that does sound wrong! Its meant to be "Cheers Darlin"

Cheers Darlin' - Am - Dm - G - C - C/b

Older Chests - C - F - G etc...

Harrisburg - Am - F - C - G (Be damned if i know the struming technique!! My hand just goes all weird, and funny looking! lol)

i agree with the dramaking.. i learned guitar playing neil young, bob dylan and john denver ( :eek: ) songs.. they're all pretty easy 3-4 chord songs to play..

have fun learning guitar cille! we should jam sometime, i'm still trying to put together an all girl band :smiley2:

i just found out that if you play 'north country fair' really simple it can be played with D, A and G flat. (example: the way Johnny Cash and Joni Mitchell did it)

Neil Young's "Helpless" and Bob Dylan's "Knocking on Heavens Door" are nearly identical and very easy to play.

Helpless:

C - G - F per line of lyrics (including chorus)

Knocking on Heavens Door:

C - G - Dm for first line of lyric (including chorus)
C - G - F for second line of lyric (including chorus)
And then just play these lyric structures over and over again until the end of the song!
:)

Hey, if you like Blind Melon, "Change" is easy.
Verse: A,G,D,G,A
Chorus: D,G,A
Once that gets easy, you can move the pinky finger down to the third fret on the A, then abck to the second, lift it off, and then back on the second for the little riff they do.

Psycho Killer by Talking Heads :smiley2:

Landlocked Blues by bright Eyes... C G C and Am in the chorus

eagle eye cherry - save tonight

Am
F
C
G

damn i gotta learn that c flat chord!

Any advise on playing barre chords? i'm sick of passing over songs simply because I see it includes an F chord.

i think it involves tolerating excruciating (sp?) pain, at first at least.

Can't say I ever found them painful...awkward, yes but I was never in pain :smiley11:

There's only one thing you can do though...practise!

f chord?
u don't have to play it barre at all. If u curl ur thumb round the neck you can use it to press the bass note, and use the other fingers to hold down the rest of the strings:

example!
http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/3552/nonbarf8ao.gif

it's allot easier than barre, but still quite hard, X means don't strum that string, (you can play the high e-string string open if u like, and it can substitute Fmaj quite easilly most songs, but it's not actually a straight F-chord if you do it)

These are the labels for the fingers btw
http://img99.imageshack.us/img99/461...arfhand4ri.gif

if that's a stretch here's another, which i know mr damo uses quite a bit so that his other fingers are free for hammering and the like.

http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/7568/nonbarf27ka.gif

Damien uses the first chord you had there rather than the 2nd (99% of the time anyway!)